Amore Festival Brings in 2015 with SSL Live. L500

“The L500 is so flexible, I haven’t found anything that’s impossible!”

ROME – Electronic music fans in Rome brought in the New Year at Italy’s leading electronic music festival, the Amore Festival. This year’s Amore featured DJ/Producers Richie Hawtin, Ricardo Villalobos, Chris Liebing, Maceo Plex and Tale of Us and ran over a three-day period, ending on New Year’s Day. An SSL Live. L500, was stationed at Front of House at the Nuova Fiera di Roma venue at the hands of sound/systems engineer Simone “Zeta” Saccomandi.

The Amore Festival took full advantage of L500’s onboard I/O capabilities, as the console was flying solo without its accompanying range of stageboxes. On the console there was a total of only sixteen input channels (eight for each of the two headline acts) and three output channels for the control of DJ's Booth Monitor and other three output channels (L-R plus SUBs) in AES/EBU, sent to the massive LoudProfessional PA system via a Meyer Sound Galileo 616. Television and radio broadcasts were fed from L500’s matrix mixer.

It was the desire for an analogue-sounding digital console that lead Saccomandi to L500. “I didn’t need many channels, however, I needed a digital console that ran at 96kHz and was sonically comparable to a good analogue console. L500 seemed like the perfect fit.” he explains. “The transparency and depth through the whole chain is breathtaking. Most of my business comes from classical music and jazz. For future gigs I have promised myself that I will use L500 again.”

During the course of the festival the ergonomic features of the L500 user interface proved to be essential for Saccomandi. “I love to have all the things I need right under my fingers, whether they are input channels, aux channels, masters etc. and with this interface it’s very fast and intuitive.” he says. “The L500 is so flexible, I haven’t found anything that’s impossible!”